Carmelo Anthony Thinks Selfish Reputation Began During ‘Linsanity’

Carmelo Anthony was in street clothes nursing a right groin injury when Jeremy Lin improbably blew up, and ‘Melo seems to believe that the Linsanity craze led to people calling him a selfish player. From USA Today: “What gives? Is he selfish? Or is he a team player? It creates a puzzling contradiction between what we think Anthony is on the basketball court and what his supporters think he is. The truth might be somewhere in between, but not necessarily the middle. Anthony understands the situation. ‘Now that I’m in the spotlight a lot more being in New York City, you’ve got multiple opinions,’ Anthony said. ‘You’ve got everybody saying something about this, about that. For me, just play ball. What I realized, first of all, is to keep my mouth shut and just play ball. At the end of the day, there’s no way you can go back and forth with everybody’s opinion. I realize that.’ But he pinpoints exactly when the ‘Anthony is selfish’ meme began. ‘Let’s be frank about it,’ he said. ‘When it comes to the Knicks, we’re talking about one particular point in time. We’re talking about the whole ‘Linsanity’ thing. That’s when it started. That’s when it started to escalate as far as people saying I was selfish.’ […] Lin led the Knicks to an 8-1 record with Anthony out. Madison Square Garden was rocking, like it hadn’t been in years, and the Knicks were relevant. They moved into the top eight in the Eastern Conference and into playoff contention. Then Anthony returned, and so did the losing. The Knicks went 2-8, including six consecutive losses culminating in the dismissal of Mike D’Antoni. […] ‘Lin came and we started winning games and then we started losing games, and they could only point to one thing, which is me, the leader of the team,’ Anthony said. ‘They’re not going to point to Amar’e. They’re not going to point to (guard) Iman Shumpert. They’re going to point to me. I accept that. It doesn’t bother me.'”